About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Arab League suspend Syria till it ends its violence against protesters

The Arab League has finally taken action and surprised the many people (including the writer of this blog) who thought that it was too indecisive to move against Damascus. In a meeting on Saturday in Cairo it temporarily suspended Syria and called upon the Syrian army to stop the killing of civilians. Also it asked the Syrian oppostion to attend a meeting at the headquarters of the League in Cairo to formulate a unified stand for a transitional period.

On the same day the oppostion reported that at at least 16 people were killed in new violence. Six people died in Homs, four in Idlib; four in Dera'a, one in Latakiya and one in Rif Dimashq.

The decision by the League was clearly intended to send a strong signal to the government of Bashar al-Assad that more can follow if Syria does not fullfil the promises it made two weeks ago in its agreement with the League. So far the decision does not affect Syria's membership in the League, but it suspends temporarily its
participation in ministerial meetings and appeals on member states to recall their representatitives in Damascus. The resolution, to which Lebanon and Yemen objected, and on which Iraq
expressed reservations, promises to lift the suspension once Syria ends
the use of violence against protesters.
The suspension starts 16 November. An Arab League
ministerial meeting is scheduled in Morocco on that day to review
developments. "If the Syrian regime has ended the use of violence by
then, as it had promised two weeks ago when it agreed to the Arab
initiative to end the crisis in Syria, then the suspension would not go
into effect," said Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hamad Ben
Jassim whose country is chairing the Arab League ministerial council.
"If no agreement is reachable between the regime and the opposition
then we have to come back to the Arab League as foreign ministers to
decide our next step," Ben Jassem said.
For his part, Arab League Secretary General Nabil El-Araby said that
the resolution does not open the door to foreign intervention in Syria.
"We are working within the Arab framework and this what we have been
working with the Syrian government on for the past four months, and
today we are expecting the Syrian government to fully honour its
commitments to end the violence in Syria."
Syria's representative to the Arab League said
suspending Damascus violated the organization's charter and showed it
was "serving a Western and American agenda." Youssef
Ahmed told Syrian state television the move to suspend Syria could only
be taken by consensus at a summit meeting of Arab leaders.